As the 2022 winter season kicks off, so does the holiday season, a time filled with an abundance of traditions and memories. Lick-Wilmerding High School takes pride in its inclusivity of traditions. Even among the vast experiences of our community members, we can find common values of family and connection.
Many students also came to this same consensus. “The holiday season represents family time and a lot of time to appreciate everyone and express gratitude for people,” LWHS Student Body co-President Olivia Castillo ’23 said.
“It’s a time to connect with family and friends and the community,” said Ella Spero ’24.
LWHS Receptionist Molly French believes the holiday season is about family.
French grew up in the Bay Area celebrating holidays with her family, notably through a large Christmas party they would throw with their neighbors. “The same families would come every single year and there were always new people invited,” French said.
The holiday party was a memorable part of her childhood, and her family would spend hours every year on preparations. She remembers them baking and mixing their famous rum punch. “My mom always made these Christmas cookies, and then we would decorate and frost them,” she said.
French’s family also practices comedic holiday traditions that have been carried on over the years, such as re-gifting the same nutcracker every year. “It became a joke to wrap it up every year and send it to someone else,” she said. Her family also had a holly tree that would grow bright red berries in the winter. “My mom used to cut the holly every Christmas and give it as gifts to people and use it to decorate the house and the front porch,” she said.
Nowadays, French continues to celebrate Christmas and the holiday season with her sister, brother-in-law and their kids. Together, hey get up Christmas morning and dump out their stockings, have breakfast then go on a long walk with their dog. The day ends with a large family dinner, a vegan shepherd’s pie and French’s specialty turkey dish.
Frosh/Soph Dean Chris Yin shared a similar sentiments, stating, “my holiday season represents family.”
Yin also holds holiday traditions centered around making food with family, especially on New Year’s Eve. As a child, her family gathered to make mandu, Korean dumplings. “We would sit around the table — my parents and the cousins and everybody — and we would make mandu together, and then my mom would make this delicious soup. We’d eat it all together on New Year’s Day,” she said.
Nowadays, Yin still celebrates the holidays through culinary traditions, notably through frying mochi with her family and eating it with kinako and sugar. “They’re little squares of mochi and with just a little bit of oil. You fry it on a pan, so it’s crispy,” she said.
Even outside the holiday season, family reigns superior in Yin’s life. Reflecting on annual trips to Oahu, she said, “All of my kids have been going to Camp Erdman every summer…it’s my most meaningful holiday tradition because our entire extended family is there. My children have been going since they were born.” In December the reunion continues as Yin goes back to her birthplace and childhood home of Hawaii during the winter every year with her family. “My aunties, uncles and cousins all come. Everybody gets together. It’s a wonderful tradition.”
Yin also described her holiday tradition of a “bad Santa costume.” “Someone always dresses up as Santa in a really bad Santa costume. So really only the two or three-year-olds can’t tell, but it’s a tradition,” Yin said.
photo courtesy of Chris Yin
Castillo also celebrates Christmas with Santa, but as she has aged, she’s grown an appreciation for the memories of the holiday season as a whole. “As I’ve gotten older it’s become less about Santa and more about family,” she said. However, this holiday season is especially meaningful to Castillo since she has a new baby brother who will celebrate his first Christmas this year. Her most meaningful annual family tradition is getting up Christmas morning to go to her grandmother’s house to exchange gifts. She is excited to participate with family yet again.
Spero celebrates a combination of Hanukkah and Christmas, merging traditions from both her father’s and mother’s sides of the family. This year, the holiday season is especially exciting for her, as she has the entirety of Hanukkah on break, something she doesn’t recall having before. Additionally, she said, “This year Hanukkah falls on Christmas, so it’s going to be an exciting mix of traditions,” she said.
This year, the World Cup Final, a favorite event for a soccer player like Spero, takes place on the first day of Hanukkah. “It’s going to be really fun to have the World Cup on the first day of Hanukkah because we are gonna go over to my cousins house. We’re gonna watch the World Cup, and it’s just gonna be like a big mash of traditions,” said Spero.
Spero values the family and community that accompanies the holidays, and recounts her favorite memories from the holiday season. “The first few nights of Hanukkah are pretty special because there are always small gifts. It starts with smaller gifts or trinkets, and then it leads up,” she said. She also discussed her family’s new menorah and Hanukkah ornaments that decorate her Christmas tree, another mash of traditions bringing her family’s histories together.
LWHS is home to a wide variety of experiences and stories, more than could ever fit in an article. Oftentimes we get so caught up in our school lives that we forget to ask those around us about their lives outside the stressors of school. This holiday season, spend time connecting with your classmates and teachers through stories and traditions. If you’re lucky, you may discover a new tradition to adopt as your own or come away with an amazing story!
